Many businesses have relatively large computer installations that include many types of computer equipment, such as clients, servers, storage devices, and networks of various types, services, among other things. Providing services and computer resources shall be defined herein as “IT services.” It has become common practice for one business, e.g., “IT service provider,” to provide a wide array of IT services to another business such as an “outsourcing customer.” As a part of the lease, agreements as to the level of service are made between the two businesses. These agreements are also commonly known as service level agreements (SLAs) and the level of services are also commonly known as service level objectives (SLOs).
As the computer installations are used to provide various services, problems can occur. These problems are the underlying cause of incidents, according to one embodiment. Incidents are any degradation of service which a user, such as an outsourcing customer, experiences, according to one embodiment. Examples of incidents are degradation in the quality of service according to some measurement of quality service, unavailability of service, hardware failure, and detection of a virus, any of which could result in degradation of one or more services.
Not meeting a service level objective results in what is commonly known as a “service level objective violation.” Frequently, an IT service provider will be subjected to direct financial penalties or indirect financial repercussions in the event of a service level objective violation.
The drawings referred to in this description should not be understood as being drawn to scale except if specifically noted.